


Chihiro to Kunio

by Hawkbringer



Category: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Discussion of Infidelity, F/M, Fluff, Haku in Dragon Form, Japanese Culture, Japanese words sprinkled in, Jealousy, Light Angst, Like 20 years later, Married Life, POV Original Character, POV Outsider, Spirits, Unhappy marriage, country life, long bottom note
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-21 04:29:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19995874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkbringer/pseuds/Hawkbringer
Summary: Chihiro is married to a simple country man named Kunio, and has not seen her guardian spirit Haku in over 10 years. This is her husband's perspective on the first time they meet in his presence.





	Chihiro to Kunio

**Author's Note:**

> I'm rather proud of this one! Check out the note at the bottom for explanations of Japanese words and concepts.
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr and Twitter as Hawkbringerandstubby!

"Oh. It's Haku again?" Her husband didn't seem pleased, and Chihiro knew that, from his viewpoint, he had a good reason. But he just didn't _know_...

"Mmhmm," she replies, floating towards the door. Kunio bit back his displeasure, as he did every time that Haku man appeared to spirit his wife away. He wished she didn't seem so damn _happy_ about it, like her _real_ life was so terrible, she couldn't wait to get away from it, from him. 

She seemed so happy, or, at least, content, most of the time... Living here on their simple farm, away from the city she'd been born in. Her whole life, she moved farther and farther from the major cities, and out here on this mountain, he wondered if she'd finally find the peace she seemed to be searching for in the wilderness. She _had_ seemed to find it, for a while. 

Then _he_ had shown up. 

***

The first time the tall, incredibly handsome man had knocked on their door and Chihiro had answered it (alone, which Kunio always regretted, forever after), there had been silence. 

The stranger had not introduced himself, had not explained his presence. It was the silence that drew Kunio to the door, calling after his wife's well-being. 

The first thing he saw from around the corner was her arms dropping from a stranger's neck and before he could even gasp, his wife had grasped the stranger's hands, taking incredible liberties with his person, even if he _were_ a long-lost companion of hers, and pulled him into the house proper. 

Kunio declared her behavior childish even before he heard her giggles. She was bouncing about, shutting the door, waving her hands excessively, hanging up the tall man's travelling cloak - who even wears those anymore? It was only as the man she was hastily introducing as Hayami Kohaku was toeing off his shoes that Kunio noticed he was dressed like some sort of costume player or historical actor. Wooden sandals, for heaven's sake? In _this_ weather? 

Kunio opened his mouth to protest but by that point, his wife and the stranger were sitting before the hearth-fire in the main room, Chihiro babbling about how she'd never been so grateful for a wood-burning stove. 

The indulgent smile on the stranger's face was growing with every word that dropped from her lips and when his lips split revealing his ridiculously-perfect teeth, she finally noticed he wasn't merely wearing the polite smile expected of him as a guest and stopped chatting for a moment to fire off a rude "Nan-da sore?" as her own smile slipped completely away. 

Kunio felt a dash of fear as the stranger opened his mouth. Those teeth and his height made Kunio certain he was dealing with a gaijin, for which he was totally unprepared - and in his own house! But his smooth reply, in native Japanese, put him mostly back at ease.

"You've turned into a chatterbox, Sen, ne?" 

Then Kunio realized he had a _pet name_ for her. It didn't get better when Chihiro burst out, "I'm so sorry, Haku-sama! Please don't report me!" accompanied by a deep bow. Like he'd been prefect at her school once or something.

"Oh, it's not a _bad_ thing!" And the man goes to stand and he's suddenly completely certain that they're about to touch, and he's shaking, completely impotent, because his wife _isn't stopping him_ and Kunio himself isn't sure _he_ could stop this man, if instead this Haku-sama was here for _him_. 

He tries to speak up, his mouth suddenly going dry as their hands connect and the stranger shifts his gaze just the slightest bit towards him, away from his wife, and he tries to count that as a victory. He only manages an impatient huff, but it's enough to get both their attention focused back on him. He's almost relieved, but then his eyes lock with the stranger's and there's something impossibly powerful behind them. 

Kunio isn't a very spiritual man, never put much stock in the spirit-tales he'd been told as a child, but some things sink deep into racial memory when one's family has lived in an area for as long as his has and there is something _otherworldly_ about this visitor. 

He drops his head in a sudden, shame-filled bow and Haku is smiling just the slightest bit when he raises it, all of him shaking. 

"I know what you're thinking," the native stranger says. Kunio's face displays a level of mortal fear Chihiro has never seen on anyone. He's taking Haku's words at face value and she giggles to lighten the mood.

"He _doesn't!_ He's just _guessing_ , right, Haku?" The stranger raises an imperious, teasing eyebrow at her words and she tilts her head, brows lowering, towards the man she has spent the last decade and more sleeping beside. "He's about to wet his pants!" The stranger's mouth opens, then closes, and he goes just a little bit pink, as though embarrassed and Kunio laughs, can't stop himself. This kami seems so human. He wonders what it is, exactly, then shrinks in on himself, wondering if he'd rather _not_ know, _ever._

"Right," Haku continues smoothly, looking back at Kunio with more sympathy in his eyes. Kunio can't decide if that's _worse_ than the otherworldly fire that brooked no argument. "You're thinking I'm here to take your wife away from you." His wife's eyes widen at that, like she hadn't thought of that possibility at all. Focused on Kunio, Haku tilts his head briefly, acknowledging the possibility. "You can see what I am," he continues, trailing off to let the country man answer for himself.

"A _demon_ ," he hisses, because it's drawn from his lips against his will. 

Both Haku and Chihiro open their mouths to laugh at the answer and Chihiro's exasperated, loving face is more assuaging than the spirit's denial. 

"Would I let a _demon_ into _my_ house?" Kunio blushes slightly, looking down. He supposes she wouldn't, if she knew what he was. "He's a river spirit," she continues, turning her eyes back to him, and every moment he's not being looked at, Kunio feels less and less real, like they're fading into a world he isn't part of, may never be part of. He feels left behind. But the sensation of their unearthly eyes upon him is something he's not sure he can bear. He struggles to accept that he will be left behind. As always. His head falls. 

"I fell into him as a child and he saved me from drowning," Chihiro continues, tangling their fingers. Kunio has gone slightly numb, so even that doesn't hurt him. But her words don't make sense, either, when she continues, "And I met him in this form on an adventure I had when I was, what, eleven?" Haku's shoulders lift slightly, eyes widening just a bit when she turns to him to ask for clarification. He's terrible at keeping track of human years, since time flows so differently in both realms. 

"Yes, eleven," she decides, at which Haku gratefully deflates, and continues, "And we've... kept in contact. I'd see him every few years." She swallows, and tightens their hands, drawing the river spirit's focus to her tensed lips. "It's...been a while." 

They can both hear the pain in her voice, but Kohaku is nearest, so it is he that presses the comforting kiss to her forehead, him that she smiles at gratefully in return.

"I dunno," Kunio half mumbles, half growls. "It kind of looks like you're _taking her_ right now." He pales when he realizes the double-entendre in his words. 

"I _am_ about to take her," Kohaku declares, standing up and banking the hearth's fire into embers with just a flick of his wrist. Chihiro's face tightens, disliking the insinuation that she is being talked about as property. He turns to her then with such a smile upon his lips as no mere mortal could resist. "To make up for the years I was not here with you. We'll go on an adventure tonight, and I will ensure she returns in the morning, _none_ the worse for wear." He turns, partway through his imperious-sounding statement, to bring Kunio back into the conversation.

"Nngh," Kunio responds. His brain feels like it has shut down. "No... _children_ ," he spits, because he can't think of a politer way to say it. They have been 'talking by a window' for long enough now, that euphemism seems trite and incomplete. 

Haku's eyebrows lift and he turns to look down at Kunio's wife that was _never_ his property in the way their traditional marriage vows intimated. 

"You have no children by him," he says leadingly, eyes darting about the house, not seeing the small pairs of shoes by the door, the child-size-scaled items that would indicate their presence. 

"No," she replies, shaking her head. "I couldn't." 

Kohaku blinks, not asking clarification on 'could not' or 'would not'. "Do you want children by _me_?" 

Chihiro lifts her head and inhales. Kunio's blood runs cold. To have a kami discussing cuckholding his wife _right in front of him_ , pretending he's _not there_... 

She pauses a moment before answering, the indecision on her face before it settles into certainty the absolute most terrifying thing Kunio has ever seen. 

"...No." She drops her eyes and is more resolved when she lifts them. "That sounds too much like a dream." As if she would love it too much to bear living it! "And really, Haku, would _you_ raise them? I can't raise them here. That's not my life at the moment. I don't think it'll ever be." 

Then she shrugs, completely nonchalantly, as if she _weren't_ discussing the most pivotal decision of her life so far. "There's always the next life, right?" 

Haku smiles at her then, and he _glows_ , far more rapture and contentment in his expression than Kunio has ever felt, even on their wedding day. He takes one of Chihiro's hands and kisses her fingers. "Would you like to be the spirit of this mountain? Look in on your little grand-nephews, perhaps?" 

She nods, face bright as if this was possible, as if this was something she looked forward to upon her death. Kunio starts shaking his head and cannot stop. 

Haku presses another kiss to her forehead. "Then you'd better spend as much time as possible upon this mountain while you're human." He pulls back to look at her, puts one hand in her hair. Kunio is still shaking his head helplessly. "However, I don't think one night away will make too big a difference in the grand scheme of a thousand years, do you?" 

She smiles then, too, and she glows more brightly than she ever did on their wedding day. Kunio's shoulders slump and he is about to turn around and leave the room before Haku calls him back. 

" _Matekudasai_ , Chihiro no kunio," and Kunio winces, because it isn't said like a name, it's said as the flat noun, almost as an _endearment_ , and the possessive is backward, isn't it? But he realizes it really, _really_ , isn't, and his face is slightly pinched when he turns back to the kami standing beside his wife. 

"Ah?" he asks flatly. 

Haku holds out one hand and Kunio walks forward but doesn't take it. "It will be for one night. Sen-chan will make sure she returns at the correct time. She has every other time, at least." 

Kunio swallows, some color returning to his face. "How _many_ times..." He almost doesn't want to know. 

Chihiro replies, "Since you've married me? None." His heart hurts for her then. If _he_ had a female river spirit watching over him from early childhood who occasionally came to whisk him away on flights of fantastical adventure... he'd think 10 years was too long apart, too. "The last time was some months before we wed." Her lips turn up and it's such a good look on her, nostalgic. He sees it so rarely; she's always moving _forward_. "I went to the city, do you remember?" 

He does. She had come back so flushed, so vital. They'd made love for _hours_ upon her return. He colors slightly, not sure whether to thank the spirit in front of him for that passion-filled afternoon, or curse him. But if his wife was about to leave with him, perhaps he shouldn't curse him, for _her_ safety. Perhaps curses actually carried power over spirits. Or perhaps they meant nothing at all, like mortal prayers. Such a thought intensely depressed him and he resolved to never think it of the gods again.

"Then..." he begins, quite reluctantly, but hanging onto the possibly delusional idea that his wishes for his wife's safety _mattered_. "Then I give you my blessing," he sighs. "And I wish you safe travels." He fixes Chihiro with an imploring face that makes her honeymoon glow melt into something approaching sympathy, as if for a child, and Kunio is starting to see what his place in her life truly is. A _distraction_. "Truly. Travel safe. And _please_. Please be home tomorrow." His mouth works to reign in the emotions that threaten to spill down his cheeks. He doesn't want to blackmail her, but... "The forest may take me if you're not." 

Chihiro breaks away from her guardian spirit for a moment and hurries forward to take his face between her hands. The look on her face is hard, as one would scold a child for showing too much emotion in the company of others. 

"Kunio." _She_ , at least, says his name right. Like it _means_ something. "You are sad right now. But _life_ is sad. We have our moments of happiness, then they are ripped away from us and if we choose to, we may drown ourselves in grief for times gone by. But if we do, we miss out entirely on the days as they pass in front of us." She takes her hands away but her face is still hard. "If you cannot bear to sleep in this house without me, then wander the mountain tonight. _Test_ yourself. Trust the spirits. We'll see who it is that makes it home first tomorrow." 

His eyes are wide as he watches Chihiro spin on her heel and stride back to her immortal guardian, who throws one arm around her. She doesn't lean into his embrace at all. Her face is still hard. Kunio is sweating and thinks he would like to make a cup of tea, if that's all right with her. 

Before he can ask it of them, Kohaku voices an idea. "Come outside with us." Chihiro looks askance at him, eyes still hard, but mouth relaxing. Kunio sees him mouth the words "ii desu," and she twitches her mouth once in apparent agreement. 

The three of them move slowly, like leaves swirling in the eddy of a river, towards the front door. Each of them puts on their shoes and winter coats in silence. 

Outside, the moon is bright. Brighter than Kunio has seen it in years, but perhaps that's because of the tears gathering in his eyes. 

Kohaku turns to him once they are comfortably far away from the house and takes a few steps back from Chihiro. 

"Don't blink," he tells the other man who widens his eyes and doesn't blink, but it doesn't matter as he cannot at all comprehend the process that occurs nearly instantaneously as he watches, as the enigmatic stranger transforms into a long, snake-like dragon with a mane of nori-green.

Several pairs of legs hold its thick body aloft and the ones nearest to the head lower, its dog-like eyes closing as Chihiro clambers up behind its long head, hands gripping each of its two swept-back horns and burying her face behind the crest of its skull, legs tightening around its neck as the chicken-like legs unfold it back to full height. It rears its head, at least two meters over Kunio's head and he can hear Chihiro giggling as the dragon lowers its face back towards the stricken country man. 

With its muzzle lowered and both eyes affixing Kunio with a gaze he's not sure he'll ever sleep again without seeing, the dragon then gives an indisputable _wink_. Then the wind picks up and the dragon turns away from him, scales glittering like waves on a river in the bright blue light of the moon. It rushes forward without moving its legs, body twining in small serpentine undulations as it disappears out into the trees with a rush of wind that pulls Kunio's hair forward and pinks his cheeks with the freezing cold of it. 

There is only the howling of the wind as he pants, but soon, even that dies down, and a silver glinting shape rises into the sky as he watches. It turns completely in a graceful rolling bank, and silently swoops down over his house, too far up to even cause a backdraft. Despite the distance, he swears he can hear Chihiro whooping in joy as it passes overhead, disappearing over the top of the mountain as if it will never be seen again.

***

He wanders, because that is what the only true kami he's ever met told him to do, and as day begins to light the sky, he realizes he is all the way down at the foot of the mountain. 

The village there is just waking up, and the old woman who runs a fruit cart in the summer months recognizes him as he wanders past her door. She invites him in on no uncertain terms and makes him hot soup that warms his chilled bones. He cleans the dishes for her in return, as well as tending to the dust gathering in the high, neglected corners of her rooms that she can no longer reach. 

After spending less than an hour in her company, the oba-chan pushes him out into the street, the air outside much warmer now despite the false promise of the winter sun. Perhaps it would be an unseasonably warm day. 

She chastises him before hobbling with mincing steps back inside, scolding him for denying his wife the pleasure of making his miso soup. He smiled to smooth things over and didn't tell her his wife wasn't home at the moment. She would have simply asked where she was and what could he have said but 'she is too far away for me to reach' because beyond that, he did not know.

It takes him not nearly as long to walk the trail back up to his house as he was expecting, but perhaps one walks faster when they have a purpose, he muses as he gratefully opens the door of the house that was still standing. He wasn't sure why he thought it wouldn't be. 

He carefully toes off his shoes and hangs up his cloak, carefully not looking at the other items present on the rack, not looking at the small cupboard that holds their outdoor shoes. He walks into the kitchen and doesn't like what he finds.

**Author's Note:**

> Kunio - It took me a while to settle on a name for Chihiro's husband. Kunio is a not-uncommon Japanese name, and means 'country man' which is a pretty good definition of Kunio's character in this fic. Plain, somewhat traditional. Not a city-slicker or an otherworldly kami. Nothing really all that special. That's why it was important to have him be the POV character.
> 
> kami - basically a spirit. Look up animism and Shinto religion on Wikipedia for more.
> 
> Culturally, Japan is very big on politeness and formality, particularly among strangers. Skin-to-skin contact in particular is reserved for close family and friends who may as well be family. This is why in Japanese media, a loving hug will often be treated as proof-positive of a romance the way a passionate kiss is in American movies.
> 
> Nan-da sore? - What's up with _that_? Connotations of the sort of flippancy of a teenage boy. The fewer extra syllables tacked on to a word in Japanese, the more informal it sounds. 
> 
> gaijin - foreign-born person, especially from a non-asian country.
> 
> Tangling of fingers indicates a pair's status as lovers, or the intent to become so.
> 
> "talking at a window" is a Shakespearean euphemism for basically making out with an audience. (I think I have that term right?)
> 
> Matekudasai, Chihiro no kunio - "Please wait, Chihiro's country man." The way the 'no' particle works in Japanese, it could be a possessive one way OR the other - the lid's bottle OR the bottle's lid. It sounds a bit awkward in this sentence, and it's supposed to. I did not capitalize the man's name on purpose, to indicate tone.
> 
> The forest may take me - Japan has an infamous suicide-forest where people go to disappear. He's laying on the guilt-tripping pretty thick here.
> 
> ii desu - it's good/it's okay
> 
> nori-green - seaweed-green. (Man, i was really on my weeabo shit when I wrote this, huh?)
> 
> its body - the transition to 'it' pronouns is purposeful, to illustrate Kunio's stunned confrontation with the otherworldly and his inability to comprehend it.
> 
> oba-chan - means 'grandma' and is used liberally to mean 'old woman' with a bit of informality.
> 
> The ambiguous ending is on purpose, like, is she home alone or with Kohaku, or is she not back at all? Kunio hasn't grown as a character that much. He's accepting, but not really, of the fact that Chihiro isn't the wife he thought he'd married. He's actually still stand-offish and jealous the next two-or-three times Haku arrives, as the intro indicates.


End file.
